Totoro Cookies!

Hello everyone! I haven't been feeling all too well with spring cold season going crazy over here, so I decided to make some Totoro cookies to cheer me up a bit. My Neighbor Totoro is one of my all-time favorite movies and I thought that this was such a cute idea. The original tutorial is here. This was not my creation, but I did change it up a bit to accommodate what I already had in my kitchen.

The finished product. 

Instead of gingerbread like in the tutorial, I used sugar cookie mix because they were having a sale and I just used black food coloring to make it a "totoro grey". Make sure that if you do this, keep a mental note that it will get lighter after you bake it.

I like to mix it manually because it gives my arms a workout!

Sorry I didn't document every step for you guys, but if you want to know, then just watch the video that I linked to. You can blame my cold for making me tired and forget to take pictures. 

For the icing, I used a trick that my friend's mom taught me. Take a bowl of powdered sugar, add a tiny bit of vanilla (or any other flavoring you want), water, and food coloring and mix it all together. There's not really any exact measurements for it since my friend's family never really uses them anyway, so just start slow and you can always add more if you need it. 

P.S. The water goes a long way in the powdered sugar so you don't need that much.

The icing dried before I could put the sprinkles on the soot sprite. I kinda had to press them on there.

Whenever I bake, I make a huge mess on all the tables and counters. Honestly, I showed you the only cookies that were fully decorated. The rest I gave up on because I was just so sick of cooking that I had to walk away. It's okay, they'll still get eaten in my house full of cookie monsters. 

I don't know if it's because my taste buds changed because of my health kick or my cold, but I could only eat a few cookies before it got way too sweet and had to switch to fruit. It might also be the fact that I drenched them in frosting, too. We all learn from mistakes. 

What do you guys do while you're sick?